This book will never get old, no matter how many times I read or listen to it.

Long review but:

Collins is such a skilled writer, and one thing she does especially well in this book is characterization for Katniss. I run into so many FMCs that are written in the "I'm not like other girls" trope, and I think a lot of that is inspired by Katniss. The difference is that Katniss is just her. She's not like other people because she HAD to be different to survive. There are reasons and logic behind why she is the way she is. She's a great hunter because her dad taught her and after he died, she HAD to be a good hunter to keep her mom and sister alive. She is disconnected from people because she is so focused on taking care of her family. She is just so herself, and she ends up feeling like such a real character.

I love dystopian books, but I struggle with many that came after the Hunger Games popped off. Many of these books and series tried to copy the success of this series, and I think the quality of books suffered for it. I think the authors of these books missed the point of dystopian stories and just saw the money. They don't understand the point or purpose of the genre. This book gets it though. The critique and analysis of government, control, social and class systems, wealth and poverty in general, etc are so good. There's complexity and meat in this book, and it hits the right spot every time.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC! This is my fair and honest review.

WARNING: Toward the end of this review, there will be more spoilery content.

This is going to be a long one! I could write a whole paper about this book.

Tara is a soft, gentle, and loving teenage girl who wants her dying sister to live. She is also a serial killer. 2 years ago, Tara made a deal with a demon. The deal is this: a heart for a heart. On each eclipse, Tara must rip out a person’s heart and give it to her demon. When this is done, Tara’s sister is strengthened, and her heart continues beating.

Rian is a man in pain from the pressure of his abusive father and the loss of his murdered girlfriend. He is also Tara’s next target. His main goals are to avenge his girlfriend and to prove himself to his father. Fresh out of university, Rian heads to Louisiana to help with his father’s hotel business and, more importantly, hunt down his girlfriend’s killer.

As Tara and Rian grow closer, Tara must decide if she will rip out Rian’s heart or if she will break her deal.

If you like murder, dark romance, serial killers, paranormal/supernatural elements, mystery, and deals made with demons, I would recommend this book!

Trigger warnings include:

• Murder
• Verbal abuse from a parent
• Abuse from a romantic partner
• Sexual harassment/assault (in my opinion)
• Self-harm
• Suicidal thoughts

The first quarter of this book was SO good. It was a really strong start, which can be hard to achieve. I loved the beautiful imagery and was extremely curious about these characters. The premise itself was very compelling. A girl having to grapple with the horrible things she has done to save her sister while also learning what it means to love and be loved? Hell yeah. A demon who hides his intentions while also seeming to care for the girl he has made a deal with? Yes please.

There were many things I really liked. The relationship and communication between Tara and Thorn are unique. It was a very cool and well-executed idea. The way they interacted added so much to the story and to Tara and Thorn’s characters. I loved the concept of a girl who wants so badly not to be evil but struggles because she cannot forgive herself for what she’s done. So many elements of this story were super intriguing. There was even a moment toward the end of the book that genuinely made me cry.

At the beginning of this book, I was expecting it to be a 4.5-star read for me. Unfortunately, after the first quarter, it slowly went down the further I read.

It’s hard to talk about this without giving spoilers, but I will do my best. At the end of this review, I will provide more details about an issue that bothered me.

The romance in this book felt a bit unnatural and off-putting. It was one of the bigger things that dragged my rating down. Especially toward the end, I felt like I got whiplash from how quickly things were switching up. I also really disliked Rian, which made the romance a bit less fun for me.

Another big thing was some of the writing choices. For the most part, I really liked Howell’s writing style. There is a lot of beauty and rawness in it. But there’s also a lot of inconsistency. Sometimes the logic of situations just isn’t correct, and that bugged me a bit. Like someone gets so injured that they can't move, but then the next moment they're climbing over seats to the back of a car. Another example is Tara wondering what it would feel like if she and Thorn were to touch, but a little later, she thinks back to a time when he caught her and held her against him. Another is when two characters talk about how they can’t afford tickets to travel to see Tara’s sister, but immediately after that, they start making plans to travel the country for a few weeks. These moments of inconsistency and broken logic became more common later in the story, and it took me out of those scenes because they didn’t feel believable. There were many times when something would happen, and I would think “Wait, how could this happen this way when the described scene doesn’t allow it?” I’m trying to explain while being vague, I’m sorry haha. I might just be picky, those things might not bother everyone. They bugged me, though.

I also felt conflicted about the ending. It was a different vibe from the rest of the book. I won’t spoil it, but while I was satisfied with many aspects of it, it felt like something you’d see in the show Once Upon a Time. In fact, there are quite a few aspects of this book that made me think of Once Upon a Time as I was reading, for better or worse.

The best character in this book is absolutely Lorrie, and she kept me going. She was so kind to Tara and was a genuine friend to her. She was a girl’s girl and stuck with Tara and supported her through the most insane things. She was feisty and bold, and I just adored her. I want a whole book about Lorrie!

This sounded like a book that would be right up my alley, and many parts of it were. But some of the choices made broke the immersion and made me deeply uncomfortable. This might work better for someone who loves dark romance and enjoys male characters that are a bit toxic. I enjoy toxic characters sometimes (like Edward from Twilight, for example), but some of the characters in this book went a bit too far for me.

I’m going to put some more detailed thoughts here that might be more spoilery, but I still tried not to spoil the plot.

The biggest issue for me in this book is Rian as a whole.

One of the reasons the romance didn’t work for me is that it seems like Tara and Rian don’t actually like each other. Rian, in fact, treats Tara horribly. He’s awful and abusive, but it’s never seriously addressed. I assume she never stands up for herself because she believes she deserves everything horrible, but I wish his behavior had been more critically discussed. I hated this man more and more with every page. He disgusted me. This is the perfect line to encapsulate him: “I want to hurt her, but I won’t, because I’m the good guy.” Ew! Again, if this had been addressed more, maybe it would have made more sense or felt better handled. But I had to watch him be mean, pushy, and extremely self-centered throughout this whole book without it ever being talked about like it was actually a bad thing.

Also, maybe the age gap would have felt more okay if he had been respectful to Tara, but because he wasn’t, the age gap felt weird to me. He pushes Tara’s boundaries all the time and decides what she is feeling. He comes off like an emotionally stunted and immature 30-something-year-old as he pressures a teenage girl to be in a relationship with him for no good reason. There are even times when he is touching her without real consent.

A real quote from this book: “Rian shifts, his hand slipping lower on my waist with a sigh. He won’t stop touching me.” Gross. There are multiple times when things like this happen. Where Tara is vulnerable and broken, he tries to be physical with her, and he just assumes she wants it. It made me extremely uncomfortable. At one point, Tara and Rian are kissing, and he thinks about how this proves that she trusts him. Then he thinks to himself, “It makes me want to push her harder. To see just how deep her need goes.” !!! I’m sorry, it just made me feel really icky.

Looking through the notes I made, so many of them highlight things Rian says or does, and the notes say “I hate this man”, “this guy is insane”, “he is a villain”, etc. He always blames Tara for everything that goes wrong and never takes responsibility for his actions and mistakes. He puts her in situations where he knows she is uncomfortable, but he expects her to do what he wants anyway. He hits, throws, and breaks things, aggressively yells at Tara multiple times because he’s so angry, and at one point, he literally “rakes his fingers down his face, leaving trails of red” because he is angry at Tara. The way he thinks about her and treats her is just really gross. I honestly wish I had known that going into this, because his behavior was triggering at times. Maybe dark romance is just not for me. No judgment if you’re into reading content like this, it just doesn’t work for me.

So relieved I’m finally done with this series so I can stop being such a hater. After this one last review anyway lol.

Honestly I liked the first book. I kept waiting for the plot to get more interesting and come to a head, but it got worse from there. Dashner’s writing is so lazy and infuriating. So much telling, not much showing. And this is the worst main character I’ve encountered since Clarke in the 100, if you know you know.

I genuinely can’t stand Thomas. He’s so dumb and full of himself and constantly puts himself and everyone else in danger because he just does whatever he wants. He’s a terrible friend, and his character is so inconsistent. One moment he “realizes” he’s done with Theresa. A little bit later he “realizes” he misses her. A bit after that he “realizes” he hates her again. Dashner says “he realized” like 500 times in this book. Nothing Thomas thinks or feels matters because Dashner constantly changes how he wants Thomas to feel with no explanation. I don’t know, I just felt so much anger and frustration throughout this whole book.

It also kind of felt like nothing happened? I saw someone point out how Thomas passes out or is sleeping for like half of the second book, and after reading that it really stood out to me how often he is sleeping or just sitting and doing nothing. There are some moments of action in this book, but a lot of it felt really slow and pointless.

I’m happy for those who can enjoy this and have fun with it. I wish I could but I was too filled with rage.

I’ll never have to read this series again!! 🎉🎉